The Mars Helicopter, a small, autonomous rotorcraft, will travel with the agency’s Mars 2020 rover mission, currently scheduled to launch in July 2020, to demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on the Red Planet. ...

Started in August 2013 as a technology development project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Mars Helicopter had to prove that big things could come in small packages. The result of the team's four years of design, testing and redesign weighs in at little under four pounds (1.8 kilograms). Its fuselage is about the size of a softball, and its twin, counter-rotating blades will bite into the thin Martian atmosphere at almost 3,000 rpm -- about 10 times the rate of a helicopter on Earth. ...

The helicopter also contains built-in capabilities needed for operation at Mars, including solar cells to charge its lithium-ion batteries, and a heating mechanism to keep it warm through the cold Martian nights. But before the helicopter can fly at Mars it has to get there. It will do so attached to the belly pan of the Mars 2020 rover. ...

Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor

<<A probe droid, also known as a recon droid or probot, was a type of droid that could be used for deep space exploration and reconnaissance, they are tenacious hunters and searchers. Notable models included the DRK-1 Dark Eye probe droid and the Viper probe droid. They could be equipped with both shields and blasters. When the Rebel Alliance moved its headquarters from Yavin 4 to the planet Hoth, the Empire sent probe droids all over the galaxy to find the new base. One such droid, a Viper model having arrived on Hoth from its carrier, began to transmit a live feed of what appeared to be a Power generator to the Empire, leading to an attack a short time later. The droid, however, was intercepted by Han Solo prior to the invasion, warning the Alliance and giving them some time to prepare.>>